{"id":80003,"date":"2025-08-20T11:13:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T11:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/80003\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T11:13:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T11:13:11","slug":"is-there-any-way-back-for-hong-kongs-crisis-hit-restaurant-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/80003\/","title":{"rendered":"Is there any way back for Hong Kong\u2019s crisis-hit restaurant sector?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hong Kong\u2019s restaurant sector is in crisis, with a wave of closures, shrinking margins and residents lured by cheaper options locally and across the border. In the first of a two-part series, the Post looks at the industry\u2019s troubles and whether it can reinvent itself.<\/p>\n

Hong Kong\u2019s Metropol Restaurant has been bustling like the good old days in recent weeks as diners seek a last taste of favourites such as \u201char gow\u201d and \u201csiu mai\u201d before its dim sum trolleys trundle away and it closes for good in September.<\/p>\n

Among them on a recent weekday at the 35-year-old Chinese restaurant was white-collar worker Christina Wong, 50, a regular when she was a teenager.<\/p>\n

Wong went for a \u201cfarewell lunch\u201d with her husband Jonny Au but found that her fond memories of the restaurant in the Admiralty neighbourhood and reality did not match.<\/p>\n

The couple spent more than HK$450 on tea and food \u2013 \u201cmore expensive than expected\u201d \u2013 with the bill including a 10 per cent service charge, a mandatory HK$20 per person fee for tea and a small dessert that cost nearly HK$50.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the same price, we could have had two meals in Shenzhen. I didn\u2019t even feel full this time, as many items were already not available [at about 2.30pm],\u201d Au said.<\/p>\n

\"MetropolMetropol Restaurant in Hong Kong is bowing out after 35 years. Photo: Jelly Tse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hong Kong\u2019s restaurant sector is in crisis, with a wave of closures, shrinking margins and residents lured by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[40720,40716,84,40722,40717,1294,40721,40724,6875,26723,40714,40719,40723,40718,8711,3718,40715,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-80003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-admiralty","tag-baptist-university","tag-business","tag-cantonese-restaurants","tag-chief-executive-john-lee-ka-chiu","tag-economy","tag-food-and-environmental-hygiene-department","tag-german-restaurant-in-nam-cheong","tag-hong-kong","tag-hong-kong-university-of-science-and-technology","tag-kau-kee","tag-lh-group","tag-metropol-restaurant","tag-ocean-empire-food-shop","tag-shenzhen","tag-singapore","tag-taipan-bread-cakes","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}